


You're My Flint and Tinder

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Modern AU, New York City, Superheroes, asexual!Armin, superhero au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1519544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Kirschtein is your average 20 something pretentious hipster douche, well, besides for the whole "ability to set stuff on fire with his brain" thing. Comfortable in his new position at the largest superhero league in the country, he does not expect a new group of masked vigilantes with superpowers to shake the long held order he's only just become part of. Cue people watching at a shitty bar on the lower east side, where he comes across Marco, an almost painfully charismatic boy with the most honest smile Jean's ever seen and the shoulder to waist ratio of a tortilla chip. Still, it seems they both have things to hide from each other...</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're My Flint and Tinder

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever SNK fic! And my first multi-chapter fic for AO3! Yay for firsts :)  
> I wrote this because I was appalled at the lack of readily available superhero AUs.  
> It was written primarily at 1 in the morning, so consider yourself warned.  
> yeah.

Jean twisted to look over the side of the building, puffing his chest out in a stereotypical hero pose, seen in only the cheesiest comic books. He knew nobody was looking this far up, and even if they were he would be nothing more than a dot, but he did it anyway. Just in case.

Turning around, he saw the guy he just took out lying in a pool of his own spit and blood. Gross. Wrinkling his nose, he sent the address of the building to the police with the little beeper on his wrist.

Jean kicked over the ledge, catching a spare breeze as he pulled the triggers on his maneuver gear, grappling from rooftop to rooftop.  
Joining a league did have its perks, like all this sweet gear. The whole cape and tights thing took a little bit of getting used to though. There was part of him that missed the days when he was just a kid in a mask who wanted to use his idiosyncrasies to do a little good for a city in need.

Speaking of the league, he had to get back to his squad base and file a report. The paperwork was not the best part of being a superhero, but that’s what it takes to tie up all the loose ends and not be marked as a public menace. It’s not efficient at all, but you do what you’ve gotta do when it means keeping people’s asses safe.

On his way back to the skyscraper his league used as a base, a call rang out on his wrist. Retracting his gear, he paused on a rooftop to answer. Theoretically one could use their maneuver gear and comms at the same time, but Jean didn’t want to maneuver without giving it his full attention, and risk having an accident. That would be dangerous, and more importantly, embarrassing. He hadn’t wiped out with his gear yet, which was something all the other heroes (especially Eren) were very aware of.

As he logged into the call, he could immediately tell something big was happening. The sheer amount of voices talking lead Jean to believe that this was a full league call, which constitutes a real emergency. Jean straightened his back as he turned on his mic.

“This is Ignition. I missed the first half of this, can someone fill me in?” he prayed that someone would answer him, and hopefully someone pleasant. As the red signal on his glove for a private call came in, he let out a sigh of relief. He was so new to the league, he wouldn’t have been surprised if his plea for information had been ignored.

“Hi Jean!” Jean smiled as he recognized the voice, it was Armin, or more commonly known as Whisper. He was one of the first people Jean met at the league, and definitely one of the nicest.

“Hey Armin! What’s going on?” Jean asked, mildly confused.

“OK so I called you privately cuz there’s a lot going on, and I’m just gonna word vomit until you’re up to date, K? So there was a break in at a bank, ya know something not that big that wouldn’t need more than 2 heroes, but then a bomb went off.” Armin paused there, catching his breath. A bomb? They would’ve needed someone who could control fire. Why wasn’t he called?

“But then, after that, a team of heroes answered! But the kicker is, they were unregistered. Vigilantes with powers. A whole group of vigilantes, how dangerous is that? Which is why we’re all flipping out. Erwin’s had me scanning for hours, but I can’t find them. They’re really well prepared and equipped! So we’re gathered in a group call to see if we can find em, register em, and see if they wanna join us. And if they’re heroes at all… they could be a villain group…” Armin ranted the entire thing, losing steam with every word. Usually he was much calmer when he went on his tirades, but today something was off. At the end Armin was breathing harshly, like he has just run a marathon. Jean held back a snort.

“OK so we’re all flipping our shit over some new guys?”He tries to rationalize.

“Jean it’s bigger than just some new guys, these new guys could forward our cause or destroy it! They all have powers Jean, big ones. Three shifters, a telekinetic, a telepath/empath, and god knows what else they’ve got up their sleeves. Try to look at the gravity of the situation.” With that, Armin logged off and joined the group chat. Jean elected not to.

Closing his wrist panel, Jean adjusted his maneuver gear and launched off the side of the apartment complex he was loitering on.

He swung his way back to HQ with little issue, until he had to enter the building.

Entering HQ was always hard, because of the various scans and tests you have to perform to verify your identity, while stalling in your maneuver gear 70 stories up a building. Jean never understood why they couldn’t just install a god-damned door, but he guessed that that’s not cool and mysterious enough for Commander Erwin.  
Jean stuck his arms out to balance himself during the retinal scan, but during the fingerprint scan he ended up flipping over in an unpleasant way. Groaning, Jean slunk into the building through the now open latch door.

HQ is always pristine, due to the weird hygiene fetish Whirlwind has. As Jean walks down the sterile hallway and enters the locker rooms to change into civilian clothes, he decided he needed a drink. Badly.

Pulling on his skinny jeans, chucks, and red beanie, Jean looks like any old dime a dozen hipster douchebag. That’s what he’s going for, you don’t wanna be conspicuous when you’re secretly a superhero. Plus, he needs to blend in to keep from getting into fights. Now that Ignition is a known hero, Jean has to avoid fire like the plague, in case someone associates him with it.

Now fully dressed, Jean grabbed his messenger bag and headed to the elevator hallway. As he waited for the elevator, another hero entered the hall.

Other than the trademark red scarf around her neck, there was no resemblance between the athletically built girl standing next to him and the Crimson Hunter, a hero with all the powers of Superman without the weakness of Kryptonite. The Crimson Hunter could go national had she not been tied to the New York City area by her brother. Jean felt a little (read: an incredible amount) of hero worship towards her. She was what made him decide to harness his powers to stop crime in the first place.

“Hey Cr- Mikasa,” Jean beat himself up, you never refer to heroes by their hero names out of costume! That breaks like, every rule ever about hero anonymity,

“Hello.” Mikasa spoke to him, his stomach dropped through his feet. He didn’t think he’d get this far, he didn’t have anything planned oh god oh god oh--

“I like your hair!” Stupid Jean, what the fuck are you doing? I like your hair? What?

At that moment, fate decided to let Jean off the easy way and the elevator dinged. Mikasa had pressed the up button (probably to visit Eren) and Jean was going down. The elevator that had come was the up elevator, which Mikasa stepped into without a word.

Well Jean fucked that one up. Now he needed a drink even more than before, jeez. Rubbing his arms like he wanted to rub his wounded pride, Jean stepped into his elevator.  
Luckily there was a great bar 2 blocks away from the League’s building. It was pretty hipster casual for something located on Wall Street, but hey, whatever’ll give him a stiff drink.

Walking to the bar, Jean was bumped into by a muscley looking (and feeling) blond guy.

“Hey, watch your step!” the big guy yelled over his shoulder. Before the league, Jean would’ve turned around and yelled right back, maybe even tried to take that guy. Now, he had to stay cool and collected. He walked away faster, making his strides longer.

Before too long, he was shoving his way into the bar. It was around 10, so it was relatively crowded with early 20-somethings. Jean had just had his 22nd birthday, but was rarely carded even so. Something about his long, grumpy face made people not want to talk to him any more than was necessary, though he could turn the charm on when he wanted to.

Shuffling over to the counter, Jean plopped his elbow on the underpolished surface and coughed.

“Hey Mina” he said to the bartender, who turned at hearing her name, black pigtails whirling with her.

“Hey Jean!” She then wordlessly poured him a double malt scotch on the rocks and slid it over to him. Sipping at his drink, Jean took to watching the other patrons.  
A short grumpy looking blond girl argued with an incredibly tall man. he started the conversation easy going, but Jean watched as his expression changed to anxiety. The short girl eventually stormed out, leaving the tall now sweaty one to look confused and disappointed. I tote my eyes away from that trainwreck, and scanned the room for something more interesting to watch, half heartedly sipping at my whiskey all the while.

Sitting in a little nook just by the bar, talking to a girl next to him, was a tan guy. The girl was equally tanned, and was laughing raucously at what the guy had said. He gave a full smile, revealing straight white teeth, and something in Jean’s chest ached, nostalgic for a friendship he never had. Damn, did he want to get to know that guy. That he was kinda cute helped a little too,

Whoa, Jean. What the hell are you thinking? Shaking his head and taking a long sip of his (honestly foul) whiskey, he shook off whatever he was feeling about that dude sitting in the corner. It wasn’t that Jean wasn’t comfortable in his bisexuality (he most certainly was), it was just weird for him to feel so strongly about a complete stranger. His mind had fogged over in a way that seemed almost familia-- wait a second.

He did know that feeling, but he couldn’t place it no matter how hard he tried. The harder he reached to find it in his mind, the heavier the fog became. Eventually he stopped rooting around in his brain for information. Sliding down the bar to get closer to the tan kid, he saw that not only had the other girl left him alone, where he was smiling shyly into his drink (something with an umbrella in it), but he had a multitude of freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks.

Taking his chance, Jean strutted over to the stool the stranger was sitting at. The fog he had felt before was cleared, and he was quite confident in his abilities to get this guy to talk to him.

He sat down on the stool next to the freckled guy, and cleared his throat.

“Hey,” Jean nodded as he said this, as though the head movement could make him more suave.

“Hello! I’m Marco,” the freckled guy, Marco, straightened his back and turned to face at Jean. He looked intently into Jean’s eyes, and Jean had to resist the urge to squirm. His eyes were dark, yet not clouded at all. It felt like he could see straight into the heart of him, a normally endearing quality that becomes dangerous when you have a secret identity.

“I’m Jean. Nice to meet you. What’s up? What are you doing here?” be nonchalant, dammit.

“Nothing much, my sister took me out for a drink to welcome me to the city, I just moved here.” The chick was his sister, thinking back on it, Jean could see the resemblance between their tall builds and tanned skin.

“You’re new to New York? How’s it so far,” Jean grinned wickedly. His city could take little bit of getting used to.

“Great so far! Living here, it’s like you’re a part of some strange giant animal, you know? The other day I saw a guy walking down the street in Brooklyn in nothing but a pair of polka dotted parachute pants, and nobody batted an eye!” The joy on Marco’s face was plain, and Jean thought it was the most endearing thing he had ever seen. He definitely like this guy, whether platonically or romantically he couldn't say.

Marco continued, “And everything is real here, you know? Even Superheroes, back in Montana, there weren’t very many of them. Hey look, they’re um, on TV right now,” Marco got cut off by Jean’s sharp turn. He looked up at the muted TV mounted above the bar. Sure enough, on the TV there was a fire, being taken care of by a group of people. But their costumes weren’t that of a registered league… This must be the fire from earlier, Jean thought. He would look it up later, he couldn’t show too much of an interest then. It would blow his cover.

“You like superheroes?” said Jean, trying to keep his voice as even as possible.

“Yeah! I follow all the leagues and stuff. Gendarmerie, Garrison, Recon, all of them” Jean bit the inside of his cheek. He hoped he wasn’t blushing. Recon, he belonged to Recon. Don’t do what you’re about to do Jean don’t do it…

“Did you know Recon just added a new hero? That’s like, unheard of, right? Did you know about that… what’s his name again, Incendium? Ignition, him!” Jean said, before he could regret it. Nobody ever said he wasn’t self centered, but this was taking it to a whole new level. But hey, once in the pool you’ve gotta swim.

“Oh… I heard about him yeah! He seems like he has a lot of potential. I’ve always been interested in people who can do things with their minds, I’m a follower of some of the telekinetics and telepaths, like Whisper.”

“Whisper is so nice! As a hero! Like, a nice hero!” what were you doing Jean? Exit immediately.He could feel his cheeks flaming, which for him, was literal. Talking about you, you could handle. Armin? Not so much. Next he’ll mention Mikasa and you will really set the place on fire.

He was saved by Marco, thankfully. “It’s 3 in the morning? I really do have to go, I’ve got an early day tomorrow. It was lovely meeting you, Jean. Wait-- um, here’s my number.We should talk more about superheroes and stuff...” He grabbed a napkin and scrawled something down, his cheeks tinted pink.

“Thanks Marco! I’ll text you, a secret code word, what about… peanuts?” He felt pretty clever, but he used the first thing he saw on the bar, and it was probably just the alcohol talking anyway.

He smiled, “Peanuts it is.” As he stood up, Jean tried to no avail to keep his jaw from dropping. This boy was cut. He had a gorgeous face as well, but it was all Jean could do not to whistle. He made a good choice in coming over to talk to Marco, he decided. His original reasoning, the strange aura that surrounded Marco, had left his mind.

“Bye!” Jean waved, planning on staying at the bar a little longer. He smiled at Marco’s retreating form, and ordered another drink.

* * *

Marco was halfway down the block when he felt his phone vibrate. Carefully making sure he wasn’t blocking the sidewalk, Marco fished it out of his coat pocket.  
“Peanuts.”

He smiled to himself. New York is gonna be good for him, he thought.

**Author's Note:**

> More dialogue in the next chapters, as our heroes become more acquainted with each other ;)  
> Feel free to leave kudos if you liked it, my ego can always use a little boost as well.  
> ps my tumblr is yumykuri.tumblr.com if any of you want to talk to me there about this, or anything else, I love hearing from people!


End file.
